


Flames (former and otherwise)

by BlackLoisLane



Category: New Teen Titans, Teen Titans - All Media Types, Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Reunions, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:28:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27995280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackLoisLane/pseuds/BlackLoisLane
Summary: While vacationing in France on the heels of a break-up, Dick Grayson runs into his ex-girlfriend Kory Anders, but what's meant to be a friendly reunion escalates in a way neither of them is prepared for.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Koriand'r
Comments: 32
Kudos: 118





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There’s a lot I wanted to accomplish with this story. While Titans Dickkory is a ship for the ages and practically perfect in such a way that I don’t ever imagine them getting to the place they are at the beginning of this fic--contrary to popular thought, I believe s2 only further cemented how good they are for each other-- they’re also too pretty to not use them as the aesthetic blueprint here (also I only really write for live action TV). But this is also meant to be a mix of continuities combined with a bit of stuff I just made up, and an overall exploration of how they’ve been handled by the comics, and how in spite of that, and in spite of Dick also having feelings for Barbara (which I will not undercut here the way DC loooves to do with his feelings for Kory), they can maybe still have their happy ending, because every single version of them deserves it.

**Week One**

He must have read her letter 100 times. Analyzing her spare, neat, decisive handwriting word by crushing word. That perfect printing of hers made it all seem so oddly businesslike.

“Dick, I love you more than you could possibly know, and I can never repay you for being here for me during some of the hardest years of my life. But-

He’d stopped on that ‘but’ the first few times, because he knew exactly what was meant to follow, and yet he’d found himself hoping anyway. He’d chosen all of this, a place close to Gotham, a noble purpose for Nightwing... Barbara. But Barbara doesn’t choose him anymore, and it all feels so bitterly ironic to him.

Senator Barbara Gordon, it has a nice ring to it. And being The Oracle was never going to be the only thing she wanted out of life. She wanted to change the world, not just save the day, and the closer she got, the more it became apparent that he wasn’t meant to be the man at her side as she made her auspicious climb.

He never stood in her way, not even once. Through all the trips back and forth from Washington or the State capital, the weeks without more than a few rushed conversations between them, even as he felt her slipping away he knew it would all be worth it in the end. He’d made the choice to give up The Titans because his family in Gotham needed him more. That kind of selflessness wasn’t supposed to blow up in his face, and yet...

He folds the letter and shoves it into his bedside drawer. Now is the time to process. Barbara had been his girlfriend in name only for the past three months, and now she isn’t even that. It hurts, he can feel the dull, pounding ache spreading through his chest. But he doesn’t get up from his bed, doesn’t call up Bruce to borrow the Batwing so he can make a last-minute flight to Washington to beg for her back, he just closes his eyes, pushing out the hot tears, and he tries to sleep. Maybe in the morning, his life will make more sense.

**Week two**

Gar posted a new Instagram story, he’s on top of the empire state building with some pretty girl he met in Kenya when he was filming an anti-poaching PSA. They’re a cute couple, and Dick starts typing a message  
  
“Proud of you kid, miss you every day”  
  
But before he can hit send, he erases the whole thing, replacing it with something a bit less loaded.  
  
“Cool pic”  
  
He turns off his smartphone. No more social media, it’s bad for the mental health. Also, he doesn’t need to see another post congratulating Babs on being the first parapalegic Senator from her state, and the youngest period. It’s always that same picture, Babs, looking perfectly put together in her new glasses, her copper-colored hair gathered into a high, smart bun, her tall, unnervingly handsome and accomplished campaign manager glued to her side, a steady hand on her state of the art wheelchair. 

Dick doesn’t think she ever slept with him, Babs wasn’t a cheater. But what exactly is stopping her this time? Nothing. Campaign manager guy is probably giving her shoulder rubs in the war room over her favorite Chinese take out right about now. 

**Week 3**

  
  
At the end of the day, Dick Grayson is still a superhero, always has been, always will be. It’s hard to worry about his personal life self-destructing when he’s busting up trafficking rings. So ever since the break-up, he focuses on nothing but the endless job of keeping the streets of Bludhaven safe.

But even crime in this city takes a break sometimes, and when it does, all he can do is sit in his apartment, regretting everything. Bruce is fine, the best he’s been since Alfred died. He’s got his son, his sidekicks, and last Dick checked he was even talking to Selina again. How sad that his 55-year-old former guardian is doing better in the love department than he is?

It’s not that he can’t get another girl if he wants. He’s never had too much trouble in that area. But he's starting to wonder what the point is. Dating civilians always comes with its share of complications, none of which he has the capacity to deal with in the wake of his latest heartbreak. And dating heroes, heroes like Barbara, that never seems to end well either.

At least it’s nobody’s fault this time. Not like with Kory. That had been nobody’s fault but his.

**Week 4**

  
  
“You need a vacation,” Donna says, the screen flickering on account of that lousy Themysciran internet connection. She looks good, happy, the view of an idyllic sandy beach visible beyond the balcony railing in the background.  
  
“Vacations are for people who don’t have a city to protect,” he tells her.  
  
“Oh come off it,” she says. “How many vigilante friends of yours would be willing to take your place for a week?”  
  
Roy already offered, because Donna’s not the only one who senses he’s at a bit of a low point right now. Being a superhero is supposed to mean being above all of that petty romance stuff, it means being able to shake the pain off and keep it moving. But it’s not shaking off, and everybody can see it. Once the breakup fully dawned on him, he’d thought about going to Barbara, about winning her back. They’d broken up twice during their relationship and he’d gotten her back both times, surely he could do it again, but something feels different now. For once he starts to realize that he was always the one doing the chasing, always trying to make things right between the two of them. Maybe what needs to happen this time is to simply let it be.

“A vacation, huh?”

**Week 5, day one**

He settles on the south of France, because nothing ever seems to go all that wrong there, it’s the place wealthy people always talk about jetting off to when they want to get away from it all, whatever “it all” is supposed to mean when it comes to people who can afford to vacation in the South of France. And Nice is supposed to have some of the prettiest beaches the world over. The last time Dick was on a beach, it was for a stakeout.

He feels guilty, even after everyone insists that he deserves a few days without the weight of Bludhaven and his breakup on his shoulders. Donna reminds him that taking some time away for himself is just the thing he needs to return to his duties with a clear head, Roy's already unpacked his duffel bag and parked himself in front of the police scanner back at Dick's apartment, Bruce offers him the private jet, only Damien gives him grief over the idea, because of course he would.

On the flight over, as he ignores his champagne and stares sadly out of the window, he finds himself wondering how his life might be different if he was always the type of guy who treated himself. It was easier with Kory, he thinks, before immediately wondering why that thought would enter his head unannounced. Finally, he knocks back the flute of Dom Perignon and reclines the seat back so he can try to sleep, no more thinking about Barbara, and definitely no thinking about Kory. Putting himself first is supposed to mean exactly that.

**Week 5, day two**

This is stupid, he realizes over and over again as he lounges on this beach chair, looking at the sea churn. Is he just supposed to sit here, letting the turquoise blue waves lurch forward and pull back? Surrounded by the carefree families and friends groups and lovers having the sort of fun he stopped having years ago? He shouldn’t have gone alone, but the problem when all of one’s closest friends are superheroes is that none of them have much time for frivolity, and the ones that can make the time have families of their own. He and Babs had talked about starting a family once or twice, but decided each time that they had too much ahead of them to go for it just yet. On the inside though, Dick wondered if there was such a thing as the right time in their world. 

Kory never saw the point in waiting for anything, and he knew that kids were no exception, she--

No, no thinking about Kory, he tells himself again. It’s pointless to think about her. He’s lonely, that’s all, but still, she creeps into his head again almost as quickly as he’d pushed her out of it. So he gets up to take a walk down the shore, hoping to stop himself from going on that masochistic mental tour of their beginning and end. 

It's to no avail. He’d loved Princess Koriand’r, enough to wonder more and more about marrying her. With Raven and Gar off to college and their own independent hero’ing pursuits, Dick and Kory had been free to start their lives just for the two of them. She’d invited him to accompany her in Tamaran, where she’d rule in her brother’s place while Ryand'r was on his two-year-long diplomatic crusade. Two years with his best girl in an intergalactic paradise sounded like just the thing Dick had needed at the time.  
  
But then the family he’d left behind for her and the Titans had completely fallen apart. With Alfred dead and Barbara paralyzed within the same month, with Bruce caught in a cycle of despair unlike anything Dick had ever seen, he’d had no choice but to go home. And although Kory had fought him at first, fought him like hell, in the end she’d given him the space he needed to go his own way, like she always had.  
  
“Just promise me you won’t lose yourself to that place Dick Grayson,” she’d said to him, before pressing a bittersweet kiss to his lips. He could taste her tears. Even then, she knew.  
  
She would have found some sort of alternative to carrying out her Tamaranian obligations if it meant being there for him. But he hadn’t wanted her there, witnessing the trauma of trying to put all of the pieces of his old life back together, so he left her behind, left all of them. For a while, he thought maybe they’d find their way back to each other, that it would only be a temporary break. But he wasn’t prepared for how absorbed he’d become in that world again.

It had started with Barbara’s tears. Before she learned she could be just as powerful in the chair as she was out of it, if not more, she’d cried the most heartbreaking, frustrated tears he’d ever heard, clutching to him for dear life, shattered by everything she’d lost in such a short time. And all he wanted at that point was to be anything to her that she needed. 

He’d dated Babs for nearly a month when Kory came to see him in Gotham, out of the blue, after 10 months without a word exchanged between them. She was ready to be with him again, ready to pick up where they left off, and if things hadn’t changed so drastically in so little time, he would have been ready too. She sensed it when she hugged him, and kissed him on the lips and he couldn’t respond.

“Do you still love me?” she finally asked, frustrated by his evasion.  
  
“Kory, you know I-  
  
“Dick, you know very well what I mean. Not a someone you will always love or who occupies a special place in your heart. Do you love me in the way that means forever. In a way that we never have to find excuses?”

And after an eternity, he did the hardest thing he ever had to do, he said “No.”

It wasn’t true, but he needed to say it. His loyalty wasn’t to Kory anymore, it was to his girlfriend, who counted on him. As much as his heart still ached for what could have been with his guileless space princess, he wouldn’t let himself be split in two. He loved them both, it wasn’t something that could be helped, if he was going to be with Barbara though, he would be with her completely.

And he had been, as she learned to adjust to her new life in ways that surprised and impressed even him over the following three years. She’d been the Oracle for no fewer than four different superhero teams at once, all the while determined to shake things up in Washington.  
  
Because of her, he’d done exactly what he told Kory he wouldn’t do. He lost himself to Gotham, although maybe not in the way she once feared. In any case, the day of that fateful lie he told her, was the last time he ever saw her.

**Week five, day three**

Until now

After breakfast at the hotel, eight chapters of the new Erik Larson, and an afternoon of perfectly skilled surfing that still makes him feel like a dumbass, he decides to go home early, knowing that no amount of activity will make him feel the way he's supposed to, no matter how fancy and gorgeous the backdrop. He shakes the saltwater out of his hair, and heads back toward the hotel, figuring that at least he tried. They can't possibly blame him for that. With a surfboard under one arm and the book under the other, he makes his way through the loose, white grains of sand and bits of shell, determined to be back home by the next day.

That's when he sees her, making him do a double-take that sends the board and the book careening into the sand. He'd recognize her pretty dark skin and chaotic red curls anywhere. Of all of the places for an ill-fated vacation, it had to be here. She’s standing on the edge of a small rocky bank. She poses gracefully in her flowy white dress, barely concealing the stylish metallic gold bikini she has on underneath. As the waves crash against the rocks and the water splashes up onto her bare feet, a photographer snaps away at his camera. Suddenly Dick is frozen solid, not knowing what he’ll do or say if she spots him. It doesn’t feel real, she’d just been on his mind again, completely against his will, and now she’s here, like some sort of a twisted joke. The last time they talked it was a complete disaster, surely she’ll want to punch him in his idiot face. He quietly turns away, but just as he does, he hears his name in that sweet, familiar voice. 

“Dick? Dick Grayson?”

And in the next second she’s off of the rocks and crashing into him, hugging him tight on the middle of the beach, and the way he didn’t realize how much he missed those back-cracking embraces of hers. They're both a little damp from the sea, but she still feels warm, just like she always does. “Oh my God how are you? It’s been years.”

“It has, three of them actually,” he says nervously. Although she doesn’t look even a tiny bit older, in fact, in the warm south of France glow she looks the same as she did the first time they ever met.

“You look so good!" she says, seeming to mean it. “Where’s Barbara, I wanna say hi.”

At the sound of Barbara’s name, the big, nervous grin he didn’t notice on his face, immediately collapses.  
  
“Did she not come with you?”

“No, she’s in Washington actually, DC.”

“Right, she’s a senator now, you always did like powerful women Grayson.”

“Um, actually, she kind of… we kind of broke up.”

“Oh no, why?” she says, her eyes worried. And Jesus, how does she do that? How is there no anger or judgment in her voice?

“She just… wanted different things, is all. It was pretty recent.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “Are you here by yourself? You didn’t bring a friend?”

“I kind of wanted to be alone.”

“Oh fuck that, I’m taking you out for drinks, my treat.” She turns to face her photographer. “Pack it up Charles-Henri, I’m done for the day," she says in perfect French.

“Kory, we’re only halfway through the shot list,” the man says back in English, his Parisian accent thick and heavy.

“Then you’re bound to find something brilliant in there. See you tomorrow.”

Before anyone has the proper chance to argue, her arm is hooked around Dick's, and they’re making their way to the oceanside bar.

Maybe he'll go home tomorrow instead.

**Stay Tuned Folks!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Week 5, Day 3**

He hadn’t been to the bar before now, there’s something sad about a guy alone on vacation, knocking back drinks at a bar. Kory being by his side is the only thing that makes him feel normal about it, in spite of how inherently strange this whole situation is. It’s a nice place, ritzy if somewhat gaudily decorated, with abstract murals on the walls and fancy light fixtures. 

“So, you live here now, or what?” He asks her. 

“No, I’m mostly in Miami these days,” she answers. “Although there’s also my penthouse in Manhattan, and my bungalow in Maui, and the palace in space.”

“Show off”

She giggles, “ What can I say, I can’t sit still.”

“I’ve always liked that about you.”

“Thanks, but every once in a while I think it might be nice to have a stable situation again, you know? Something to come home to. I mean, there’s Rachel, but she has her own stuff too. She’s staying at the penthouse now but who knows if that’ll be the case when I go back.

“How is she?” Dick asks. “She’s not on any of the socials.”

“You can always call her, you know? She has the same number as always.”

He nods, and takes a sip of his lychee cocktail per Kory’s recommendation. It’s good, sweet but not too sweet, and strong enough to make even him, with his superior mental conditioning, feel a little fuzzy around the edges. 

“I’m not sure if she’d want me to these days," he says.

Kory swirls her drink around in her glass, letting the big square ice cube cool the pale peach liquid, “Then you must not know her as well as you thought.”

He swallows hard, and taps his foot on the mosaic floor. He wants to prove Kory wrong somehow, that he’d known all of them as well as family. They _had_ been family, hadn’t they? He, Kory, Rachel, Gar, and all of the friends they met along the way. But growing up meant taking on new responsibilities, new adventures. They’d all understood that, right?

“Maybe I will call,” he says, although the idea seems daunting. The longer he waits to contact people from before, the harder it is. “Hey, Kory I--

“Shh, hold that thought,” she says. Her green eyes are wide now, staring at something behind him. He starts to turn toward where she’s looking, but she whispers sharply “don’t look.”

“What’s going on?”

“I didn’t expect to see him this fast, he must have gotten cocky.”

“Kory, I’m a little lost here."

“Okay, you can look now, but don’t be a weirdo about it.”

He turns his head to see a tall, wavy-haired man in a fine suit, sitting at the bar. Dick doesn’t know why this guy is of interest to her, he could be a boyfriend, or a former one maybe. It isn’t something he has any right to be jealous of in any case.

“Who is that?” Dick asks.

“He’s an alien, a shapeshifter. He and his pathetic minions killed three tamaranean guards and stole a ship to escape sentencing for their laundry list of war crimes. They’ve been living it up here ever since.”

It was the last thing he expected her to say, with Kory’s carefree attitude back at the beach, and up until a second ago, she didn’t exactly give him stake-out vibes.

“So, the photoshoot was a cover?” he whispers.

“I will be in French Vogue next month if that’s what you’re asking, two birds, one stone I figured.”

“Jesus,” he says.

“How drunk are you?”

“Not very.”

“So, what do you say Grayson? Want to help me get this bastard? For old time’s sake?”

Is she kidding? After three days of sitting on his ass, pretending to have fun, he’d like nothing better.

“What do you want me to do?” He asks.

“Well, the plan was to follow him at the end of the night and accost him outside, away from bystanders, but maybe we can speed things up a bit and have time for dinner afterward.”

“What’s the plan now?”

“Are you still any good at creating a diversion?” 

“Not as good as you.”

“Please, I’m a bull in a china shop, you’re an artist.”

He smiles unwittingly at the compliment and rakes a hand through his hair, dry and stiff from the sea salt. “Okay, I got this.”

He gets up and walks over to the man, thinking he doesn’t stand out, lots of people here are still in trunks and airy button-downs, their 20 dollar cocktails the only evidence of their wealth they need. It’s so easy for him to forget sometimes that he was raised by a billionaire.

“Hey!” Dick says angrily, making the man look in his direction. “Did you fuck Molly?”

The target looks confused, as he fully expected, he repeats the question, more aggressive this time. “Did you fuck her?”

“Hey man, I’m just sitting here,” he says, holding his hands up innocently

“I saw the texts you piece of shit!” Dick says, getting into his face, grabbing him by the collar, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kory slip some kind of shimmery powder into his drink, and he tries to keep a straight face as he threatens this stranger.

“Sir, either you restrain yourself or I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the bartender says, lacking in conviction, it's probably not the first time people have fought over tawdry affairs in this place.

“Nevermind him,” Kory says, taking Dick’s arm. “He’s very drunk.”

He starts to fake-stumble as Kory leads him toward the exit. When they're out of sight from the rest of the bar, they lean against the wall of the foyer in front, close enough for their shoulders to touch.

“Now what?” Dick says.

“Now we wait, it should only take a moment. He’s completely harmless during the transformation, his muscles will seize and his powers will remain dormant, but it’s bound to clear the room anyway." 

“What about his guys?” 

“They’ll be along, nothing we can’t handle.”

He nods in solidarity, he can feel his blood pumping a little faster already.

“Good job with the diversion by the way,” she says. “I would have set that ugly ass papier-mache centerpiece on fire.”

“Seriously?”

“Bull in a china shop, remember?”

He laughs, for maybe the first time in over a month, but it’s short-lived, before long he can hear the screaming and scattering from inside, right before they all rush out of there in a mad horde. In a world where Superman tackles some sort of world-ending crisis every other week, Dick would think civilians would be more used to this sort of thing, but it is Nice, after all.

“Come on,” Kory says when things are quiet again. They go back inside of the empty bar, and in the center of the floor is a tiny, writhing space creature, no bigger than a kitten, its pink skin is translucent, exposing its bright green veins underneath, and its legs are kicking pathetically. Dick kneels down to examine the little guy.

“This is what they were so scared of?”

“He's still human-sized before the transformation sorts itself out. Now that it’s done, he should be out for about 12 hours.” She picks him up and puts him in her purse.

“Heh," Dick mutters.

“Don’t get too comfortable.” At her words, three more guys run-in, all human in appearance, the target must have had some sort of alarm system that went off when he was compromised. But Dick and Kory don’t give them much time to explain themselves. They get to the punching and kicking immediately, they’d fought together too many times before to not remember how it tends to go. He knows how to maneuver around her, how to let her maneuver around him. It’s like a dance, a tango. Before very long at all, the three “men” are out cold and the place is littered with green blood, broken glass, and puddles of alcohol. He watches as she gives each of them a dose of the shapeshifting powder, holding their mouths open to pour it in.  
  
“Stand back,” she says, he obeys, and they watch as the men transform. It looks like it would be painful if they were awake, bones snapping, skin splitting open, muscles horribly contorting, a scary sight indeed. But she’s unaffected as they finish. After that, it takes less than five minutes for her to put the other three creatures in her bag, incinerate the security cameras with her powers, and leave a thick, crisp stack of money on the counter.  
  
“For the damages,” she explains. “Maybe now they can afford some decent decorating.”

She looks at Dick, who must look just as excited and baffled as he feels.

“Come on, let’s get sushi,” she says.

**Week five, day five**

  
  
He didn’t go home yesterday, or today, because for once it's feeling like an actual vacation, like the healing getaway it was meant to feel like. He can’t deny that Kory Anders is fun, that she makes everything else fun too, impromptu alien-fighting or otherwise. Riding a jet ski isn’t usually much of a good time for someone with access to the Batwing, but it is when he can hear her exhilarated laughter alongside him. Shopping for hats at an outdoor bazaar is rudimentary entertainment at best, but not when he watches her haggle in French.

Tonight, it’s a one AM meteor shower from the comfort of her big shoreside cabana, the canopy disassembled to provide a clear view of the stars. She’s warm next to him, and he tries not to feel guilty about being so at ease here, with her, when the plan was always to set his heart right again after losing Babs. And it isn’t that he hasn’t thought about her, or the life they had together. But Kory is like a drug, an antidepressant, it’s hard to be angry, sad or regretful about anything with her near. It had always been that way when they were together, he just never expected for a moment that it would feel the same if they were ever to meet again. He knows it isn’t romantic anymore, that it can’t be after everything that’s happened, but it’s nice, and friendly, and comfortable, like finding a favorite old jacket that fits just as well as ever.

The flashes of white and yellow light shooting across the sky make his eyes go a bit wider. He’s seen it all, met people who could lift cars over their heads like nothing, he’s been to outer space, he’s fought literal demons, but something about watching a meteor shower in France with a pretty girl still manages to amaze him. His head is still mostly clear, even with all of the liquor thinning his blood, but the urge to get sentimental rears its ugly head before he can stop it.  
  
“I should have gone with you. I should have kept my promise”  
  
She shrugs, “Your other family needed you. I never did.”  
  
“I have to admit that stings a little.”  
  
“Well it shouldn’t,” she says. “I may not have needed you but I still wanted you. I still loved you, more than anything. Isn’t that better?”

“I guess it is.”

“It’s why I let you go, I didn’t want you to feel like you owed me anything. I don’t regret a single moment we spent in each other’s lives, no matter how it ended.”

And for a second, he may have forgotten that it ever did, because at the word ‘ended,’ his heart squeezes.

“You don’t really wish your three years with Barbara never happened? Do you?” she starts again, filling the silence. And he doesn’t have a right way to answer that. He loved Babs. He _loves_ Babs, that will never change, there was even a time he’d thought she was it for him. But in spite of that, she broke up with him. It was never up to just Dick, just like his relationship with Kory was never up to just her. There’s no such thing as happily ever after if you and the one you love are on two different pages.

“No, I mean… I don’t. I just wish I wouldn’t have hurt you,” he finally says.

“It wasn’t about me. I made the choice to leave, and you made the choice to stay, and that’s all there is to it.” 

He can hear the waves crashing, the soft, hot wind whistling through the sky, it’s like Nice is trying to serenade them, trying to push them toward something, or maybe that’s just the alcohol, or her closeness, or all of the mistakes he’d made in the past, pushing him to make what could be another one.

Reaching for her hand feels like a fool’s errand, after everything he’s done, pushing her away because he could, falling in love with someone else, telling Kory he didn’t love her anymore when he loved her so goddamn much he could never fully fathom it. But he reaches for it anyway as they keep looking up at the meteor shower together. And she doesn’t pull away, because even after all of this time, she never does. Before he knows it he’s stroking her knuckles back and forth with his thumb, a suggestion. She seems to take it, she turns her head so her nose softly grazes his.

He doesn’t know who kisses who first, only that before long he’s painfully hard and painfully sad and just wants to hold her, just wants to pretend he’d never lost her in the first place, but he had lost her, he put his duty above all else and she let him because she thought it was what he needed. And what he needed always came first to her didn’t it? And now she’s here, in Nice, the sky dark again in the seconds following the meteors, and she’s holding his hand like there’s nothing at all in their past to be angry about, and kissing him so softly.

With his sense and inhibitions drowned out by the sound of the waves, he pulls her on top of him, and he lets go of everything that tells him this is wrong. He broke her heart, he isn’t worthy. He takes her thighs in his hands anyway and yanks her forward, letting the desire building between his legs push right up against her where it counts.

“I’m going to take this off okay?” he says, grasping at the hem of her gauzy purple tunic, the one with the intricate floral patches strategically placed to hide the nudity underneath.

“Do it,” she whispers. And he pulls it up until her hair gets caught. When he gets it free it falls back down around her shoulders and against her naked chest, the same as it always did. 

“I missed you,” she says. Not in that cute, flirty way that’s so like her, there’s something broken in it, something hurt. He kisses her harder, slips his tongue into her mouth and his hand down her shorts until his thumb is inside of her. Her breath catches the same way, that sharp gasp like it’s a big surprise. “I missed you so much.”

He doesn’t say anything back, because in the next second he’s sucking her breasts, one after the other, making her sigh and moan into his ear, dig her fingers into his hair. It’s all happening so fast that he could just as easily stop a speeding train, and he can’t fully understand why it’s happening, whether he’s trying to make up for lost time, or apologize or just be with her because she’s as beautiful and loving and familiar as ever. But it’s happening, and he wants it and he only wants it more the further they go. 

In what feels like seconds he's all the way inside of her, looking at her green eyes in the soft moonlight as she moves on top of him. Her lips and her skin taste like the ocean, her voice sounds like heaven. He digs his fingers into her back, remembering how she likes that, and they kiss deeper, kiss until he’s lost and his brain is hazy, until it's instinct alone guiding him into different positions, him on top, then her on top, then from behind. Every once in a while they take a break to use their mouths instead, before joining together again by their centers. It doesn't feel wrong, and with time he stops trying to tell himself that it is. They're both single, they know each other, they trust each other, they fit together just right and there's no point in denying it right now, even if he'll go right back to denying it later.

When he gets too close to the edge for comfort, he summons the wherewithal to touch her where she needs it, giving her that something extra as he slows down.

“Oh god, oh god I’m going to come,” she says, and he can feel it too, feel that climbing heat inside. He has to push her off, finish her off with his hands alone before further mistakes are made. But she always was stronger than him, and with her on top of him like this, he can’t manage to get out the proper words either.

“Goddamnit Grayson!” She says at the fateful moment, jerking back from him as much as her orgasm from a second ago will allow. He’d tried to keep it in, to not come until she was all the way off of him. He usually has a lot more control over this sort of thing. At least enough to give the warning.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice still strained, shame competing with pleasure.

“Since when are you an early comer?”

“An hour is early?”

“For you? Yeah.”

“It’s kind of been a while.”

In the next second, she has her tunic back on, and is hopping around on the sand, trying to give gravity an assist. “You had a whole girlfriend a few weeks ago. No offense." 

He doesn’t want to get into the fact that he and Babs hadn’t had sex in well over a month before she dumped him. 

He pulls himself together, managing to get his own clothes back on in spite of the tingling in his limbs. “I don’t have anything, I promise”

“That only takes care of one problem,” she says. 

He goes up to her, getting her still, and kisses her mouth, calming her. She doesn’t stop him, she kisses back, cradling his face in her hands.

“You’re lucky that was damn good,” she says, laughing. “I can get a plan b, I guess, human drugs tend to work for me, although I typically have to quadruple up.”

“Maybe it’s nothing to worry about,” he says. “I mean, can we even do that? You know, because…" he thinks about Lois and Clark, how difficult it had been for them to bring Jon Kent into the world. It didn't seem like something that could happen by accident. And Tamaraneans genetically had even less in common.

“You’re human and I’m Tamaranean? I don’t know, and I’m not trying to find out like this either.”

“Fair. Sorry, again.”

She lets out a deep, forgiving sigh. “You know what, I’m not going to worry about it right now, I have 72 hours” she guides him back to the cabana and they lay back down together. “You’re going home tomorrow, let’s just be in France, okay?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s be in France.”

**Stay Tuned Folks!**   
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Week six**

If he had to be frank, their goodbye at the airport had been a little bit anticlimactic. She hugged him as tight as always, but quicker, and told him to take care of himself. There was no kiss, she turned and walked away before he could get a chance to initiate one, not for the purpose of rekindling anything, just to give her a nicer goodbye than he’d given her the last time. He’d watched her walk away until she was a tiny speck at the end of the airfield, then he climbed the steps of the private jet and prepared for home. Along the way, he'd started to worry if she’d regretted crossing that line with him again, just to ultimately go back to their separate lives. 

Now he’s home, back from the getaway that was supposed to set things back on the right course, only to leave him more confused than ever. 

“What’s got you so bothered, guy?” Roy says, leaning against the kitchen counter of Dick’s apartment, a bowl of ramen in the palm of his hand that he picks at with a set of chopsticks.

Dick hadn’t told anyone what had happened with Kory, not Donna, not Bruce, not anyone. It was hard to when he didn’t fully understand it himself. Only Roy seeing the angst of it all over his face gives him the push he needs to say it out loud, or at least the first part.  
  
“I sort of ran into Starfire when I was in Nice,” he says, pulling his attention from the police scanner long enough to see the response on Roy’s face. Tight jaw, incredulous eyes, the opposite of what Dick wants to see.

“And you slept with her,” Roy says, the judgment in his voice strong.

“Come on man, why would you ask me that?”

“Because you slept with her.”

Dick rolls his eyes and lends his attention back to the scanner. “It wasn’t like that okay? I was going to go home early but then I saw her, and she saw me, and I thought it would be weird, but it wasn’t. She Just showed me a nice time.

“So you thought you’d thank her with your penis?” Roy says, and Dick hurls a stress ball from the desk at him, only for Roy to catch it between his chopsticks, not even spilling his ramen in the process. “I knew it. Jesus man, why are you like this?”

“I’m not like anything.”

“Yeah, you’re right, sleeping with your ex while trying to get over your other ex sounds like a great plan, I think I might give it a shot, I wonder how Cheshire’s doing right about now.”

“So, when are you going back to Star City again?”

Roy only laughs at him, and Dick shakes his head, thinking it could have gone worse.

  
  


**Week seven**

Looking at Rachel’s number on his phone, his thumb hovers over the call button, Kory’s words still on his mind. He shouldn’t need a reason to call someone who’d meant so much to him not all that long ago, who still does. He thinks about her a lot, thinks about whether she’s happy, how her 21st birthday went, if she still gets those bad nightmares. And yet, he can’t hit the button, because he can only imagine awkward silence on the other end. He’d never meant for it to end up this way, but time had an odd way of getting away from him. Maybe it had gotten away from her too. She hadn’t called either, after all.

**Week eight**

It’s official, Babs is dating campaign manager guy, Damien had told him ever so bluntly over Sunday dinner at Wayne Manor. Technically, two months is a perfectly appropriate window between relationships, hell, he’d slept with Kory by week five. It may not have been planned, but it definitely happened. 

And still, Dick can’t help feeling a bit bitter about the whole thing. What had Babs truly wanted while they were together? And what made him so incapable of providing it? 

He does some digging on the new boyfriend, he’s a Harvard grad, who’d won a few rowing competitions in his day, and got his start in politics canvassing for The Obama campaign. He’s about ten years older than Babs, a widower with two daughters and a golden retriever, by all accounts a nice, normal guy. And is that what she’d longed for in the end? A shred of normalcy in her otherwise fantastic life? Dick isn’t all that great at normal, he figured that out a long time ago. 

But maybe Babs moving on to someone else had nothing to do with Dick at all. Maybe she just needed someone different because _she’s_ different now. It was nobody’s fault, he has to remember that.

**Week nine**

He manages to hit the call button this time, and holds his breath while he waits, still not knowing exactly what he plans to say. She answers after two rings, too fast for him to come up with anything even remotely cool or collected.

“Dick!” she says on the other end, excited, a good sign.

“Hello?” She continues when he can’t find the nerve to answer.

“Rachel,” he finally says. “Hi.”

“You called, you never call, is something wrong? Is Batman dead?”

“No, nothing like that, I just wanted to talk, you know, it’s been a while.”

“It has, too long. Kory told me she saw you in France.”

His breath catches at the possibility that Kory told her what else happened. It isn’t five years ago anymore, she isn’t a kid that Kory has to be delicate about this sort of thing with.

“Yeah, we saw each other, she seems like she’s doing really well.”

There’s a brief pause on the other end. She could be collecting her thoughts, or she may just be distracted.

“She’s okay,” Rachel says. 

“Just okay?’

Another pause. “Isn’t everyone sort of just okay?”

She’d seemed far better than just okay when he’d seen her, as rich, glamorous and gorgeous as ever. The only time she seemed off was when they said goodbye. 

**Week ten**

He tries not to think about what Rachel meant by “just okay.”

**Week eleven**

What the hell did Rachel mean by “just okay”?!

**Week twelve**

Things seem to be going well with Babs’ new boyfriend. Dick knows his name, but still won’t use it, he’s at least been promoted from campaign manager guy in Dick’s eyes. He considers that growth on his part. 

Besides, there’s a bomber on the loose and if Nightwing can’t stop him, it’s bye-bye Bludhaven. It sounds more dramatic than it is. If it were The Joker or something he might have to break a sweat.

**Week thirteen**

He calls Rachel for the third time this month, and as always she’s happy to hear from him. This time there are a few stops and apologies in her speaking, as she’s currently shuffling into Kory’s penthouse after her shift at the hip occult bookstore she manages. The last time they talked she explained that most of the charms, crystals and books she sells are trash unless you know real magic, which about 98 percent of her patrons do not and can not. They’re only good enough at convincing themselves for business to be reasonably steady.

Once Rachel has the chance to settle down, the conversation flows more smoothly, and eventually lands on Kory, which he can’t seem to help these days. Rachel says Kory hasn’t been home since the first time he called. But she’s used to the older woman’s nomadic spirit at this point, and likes having time alone, perpetually house sitting.

“You should come down sometime,” Rachel says. “I’m throwing a birthday party for Gar next month, it’s going to be a bunch of people.”

He tells her he’ll try his best to be there, and they both hang up.

**Week fourteen**

Nothing to see here.

**Week fifteen**

On a particularly uneventful night, free of bust-ups, rescue missions or unexpected family drama, the kind of night that lends itself to vegging out for a _Top Gear_ marathon after four hours of training, Dick’s phone buzzes on the glass coffee table. He glances at it, thinking it’s way too early for his Thai food, and he sees the name that’s been invading his thoughts again and again.

Kory.

He answers “hello,” but it comes out weird, high and teenagery. He clears his throat and says it again, better this time.

“Dick, I need to talk to you. I don’t think it should be over the phone.”

Her voice is odd, like she’s trying to speak as directly as possible despite tears in the back of her throat.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “Where are you?”

“I’m here,” she says. “Are you alone? Can I come up?”

Of course she can, he tells her, not asking any of the million questions cluttering his mind right now.

She doesn’t look like herself when he opens the door for her a few moments later. It’s like she hasn’t slept in days, and she fidgets with her hands like she does sometimes when she’s nervous. The only thing keeping him from being stunned to see her right now, is the fact that he couldn’t be more worried. She comes in, doing a onceover of the room with her big eyes like she’s looking for a conversation starter, anything to keep from saying what she must be scared to say.

“Kory, sit down, let me get you something, I have water, I have coffee.”

“No, I’m okay,” she says, taking a seat on his couch. She doesn’t look okay, and his heart starts to pound. He sits next to her, giving her space but not too much. 

“Talk to me, what’s wrong? what happened?” He says, but she’s looking forward, at nothing, her hair creating a curtain between him and her expression, leaving her unreadable. There was a time, not that long ago, when he would have touched her, pushed her hair back so he could see her. He’d make her look at him by not letting her forget that he was right there. He uses his voice instead this time, because they’re not on that beach in France anymore. They’re in reality, where he doesn’t know what’s allowed or what isn’t.

“Kory--

“Do you remember when you asked if humans could have babies with Tamaraneans?” she asks.

And in a single instant, nothing is the same.

***

Kory always wanted to be a mother, it was obvious to everyone around her by the way she’d light up around children, the way she always treated the younger Titans as her very own. There was never any question as to whether she’d keep an unexpected baby or not. The second she realized that the four morning after pills she’d acquired from the pharmacy in Nice, didn’t work on Tamaraneans nearly as well as human genetic material did, she started preparing for her sudden change in life plans. She had more than enough money to care for a kid and more than enough world experience to teach it everything she knew. The only thing to do was to tell the father.

He’s going to be a father. He’s going to have a son or daughter who’s half him and half Kory. Nice was never a blissful break from reality, it was realer than he ever could have imagined. 

Kory tells him all of the things that she must think he wants to hear, that he can be as involved as he wants, that he can take as much time as he needs to process, and her hands shake and the tears keep escaping. And this is wrong, this is all wrong, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be for her. She should be overjoyed, he should be hugging her tight and telling her how happy he is. She deserves that.

“Kory,” he finally says, reaching for her hand and halfway expecting her to pull away. She doesn’t, she turns it around in his and holds it back, tight. It makes him feel safe to reach out and brush a tear away. “Don’t cry.”

“I can’t help it. I’m so confused, I didn’t think it would happen like this.”

He pulls her against him, wraps an arm around her. Even though he doesn’t know what they are anymore, he knows that he cares about her, and that she shouldn’t have to feel this way.

“But this is a good thing,” he says. “Do you know what an amazing mom you’re going to be? That kid is already so lucky.”

“But what about you?” she asks, looking up at him with that crushing hope in her eyes. “Is this what you want?”

Taking a quick, pensive look around the room, he becomes hyperaware of how bad a place this is to raise a kid in. it’s all hard surfaces and pointy things, muted colors and modern art that children won't get. He needs a new place, or at least a decorative overhaul. It’s a dumb thing to be worried about right now, but the biggest question was never going to be whether he’d be here for Kory and their baby. In fact, that’s the only one with an easy answer.

“This is what I want,” he says, and finally, she smiles.

He's scared as hell on the inside, in a way he's never quite been before even in literal life-or-death situations. But her smile is just the thing he needs to take the first step forward.  
  
  
  
**Stay tuned folks!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it folks, thank you so much for following! And if you enjoy my writing, please check out my Novel South, available on Authortherapitts.com and everywhere books are sold! Also, for those who don't watch Titans and are perplexed by Kory's swearing, she swears a decent amount on that show, and I kind of love it, lol. Anyway, enjoy the last chapter! It's a long one.

**Week 16**

For several nights, Kory sleeps on the bed and Dick takes the sleeper sofa in the living room. It’s easier to figure things out when they’re together under the same roof, they decide. But most mornings he wakes up to the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen for him, and some fancy takeout she’s ordered for breakfast; crabcakes benedict, or souffle pancakes or quiche lorraine from various places in Gotham or Bludhaven that somehow even he’s never properly heard of. And they don’t talk about anything but their respective plans for the day.

He keeps wanting to ask her how this is all supposed to work, whether she plans on making his place in the middle of this fraught, dangerous city one of her many homes, maybe the most consistent of them all. It’s not a possibility that brings him much anxiety, because having her around always feels easy even when it’s complicated. Once or twice he’s up before Kory and goes to shower in his personal bathroom, only to stop short at the sight of her tangled up in his sheets, a foot poking out from beneath the covers, creamy periwinkle polish on her toenails. It makes the corner of his mouth turn up for reasons he can’t explain.

**Week 17**

Kory thinks they should tell everyone sooner than later, if their friends and family know what’s up, then they’ll have a real support system, people to turn to when things get real. Bruce is first, and when Dick sits next to Kory on his former guardian’s 20,000 dollar leather couch, his knee bounces up and down as he waits for him. Bruce always rooted for Dick and Barbara to work, she kept him close to his roots. But the older man always had a soft spot for Kory too, and respected how happy and light she made him when they were together, even if he’d never fully admitted it. When the tall, salt and pepper haired gentleman walks into the room, the sight of the dark-skinned, red-haired beauty by Dick’s side nearly stops him in his tracks.

“Koriand’r” Bruce says. “This is a surprise.”

“Hi Bruce,” she says cheerfully and stands up to hug him. The older man locks eyes with Dick over Kory’s shoulder as he confusedly hugs her back. “It’s been forever.”

Dick and Kory take their seats, and Bruce pours tea for the three of them. “So, what brings the two of you here, together. This isn’t a time travel-related thing is it?”

“No,” Dick says. “More like a family-related thing?”

“Starting up the Titans again?”

“In a sense,” Dick begins. “I mean it’s a little hard to explain, you see, we ran into each other when I was on vacation, and we kind of, I kind of--

“I’m pregnant,” Kory says bluntly, cutting around the bullshit. “It’s Dick’s, and we’re keeping it.”

The two of them are still as they wait for his reaction, and Dick holds Kory’s hand because the warmth of it brings him comfort in the nerve-wracking seconds ahead. Bruce has always been irritatingly hard to read. And now is no exception. He picks up his tea and stirs it slowly before talking again.

“You’re going to need a doctor, someone knowledgeable about human/extraterrestrial couplings. Eve Watson was very helpful to Lois and Clark in this situation. I know you met her previously.” Bruce says. It’s not exactly a warm response, but it’s somehow a thoughtful one coming from him.

“So… does this mean you’re happy?” Dick says.

“It means I’ll do whatever is necessary to bring a healthy grandchild into the world. I’ll get you her contact information.” Bruce stands up then and makes a beeline for his study.

Looking at each other, Dick and Kory take in their respective smiles, because in the moment they both know what the preceding exchange meant.

“He’s happy,” Kory says.

“Yeah,” Dick agrees. “Definitely.”

**Week 18**

The congratulations come in one by one. There’s confusion, of course, about what his relationship with Kory is with a baby on the way. They assure everyone that for now, they’re merely co-parents. The “for now” is always included, a qualifier that hangs unexamined between them and everyone they share the news with. 

Rachel wants them to get married, they can tell by the subtle hope in her voice when she asks. The kid barely believes in marriage but there it is.

Gar suggests they name the baby Garfield whether it’s a boy or a girl. He may or may not be joking.

Roy calls him an idiot, and tells Kory if she needs anything, she shouldn’t hesitate to ask.  
  
Donna also calls him an idiot, and sends a beautifully embossed Themysciran sword small enough for a little kid. _Baby’s first melee weapon,_ reads the note

Additionally, Damien volunteers himself to oversee infant combat training. “If she hasn’t mastered at least one of the major martial arts by two years old you’ve already failed as a parent,” he says.

Jason asks if the baby is Dick’s. They both tell him to go to hell, and a onesie printed with a star behind a Nightwing symbol arrives in the mail the next day, a card included. _Jokes aside, that’s one lucky kid._

King Ryand’r and his Queen plan to visit as soon as the baby is here, it will only be his second trip to Earth, and Kory promises to show him the best time. “A good time on Earth is doubtful sister, and yet I look rabidly forward to it,” he says over the intergalactic video chat.

And then there’s Babs.

They don’t know if it takes nearly two weeks for the news to reach her, or just that long for her to call.

“That’s so amazing Dick!” she tells him over the phone, the first time they’ve really talked since the breakup. And he knows when she’s putting on a front for him and when she isn’t. This time, she objectively isn’t, if anything, she sounds relieved. “I’m coming to see you as soon as I get a break. There are things to say.”

By her tone, he knows it’s nothing to worry about. And it’s nice in a way, for him and Babs to just exist in the same space with nothing to worry about between them. Even Kory thinks it’s a good idea for them to talk. It hits him then, how different this feels. He’d lost touch with so many when it was him and Barbara, not because she wanted him to, but because…

To be honest, he still hasn’t quite figured that part out yet.

  
  


**Week 19**

He wakes up to the sound of Kory throwing up for the first time on a Thursday, early enough in the AM to still be dark out. He gets up immediately, rushing into the bathroom. She’s wilted over the toilet, her body contracting as she lets the sickness out.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, kneeling beside her, stroking her strong back up and down, she’s overheated, even for her, and her nightshirt is damp with perspiration. “You’re gonna be okay.”

She pushes her hair out of the way, and her soft eyes meet his. “I didn’t think I’d have to deal with this bullshit, it must be the human in her.”

“Sorry about that,” he says earnestly, continuing to rub her back in wide circles. “So, you think it’s a girl, huh?”

“Just a feeling,” Kory says, the last syllable strangled by her next bout of retching.

When she’s all done, tired and empty, she collapses against him, letting him hold her weakened body close to his while he strokes her sweaty hair. 

**Week 20**

Gar’s 23rd Birthday party is set to start at six O’clock on a Friday night, Kory gets him an Armani vegan leather jacket with intricate tiger embroidery on the back, and Dick gets him a brand new set of nunchaku for his collection. Gar’s nunchaku videos are always trending on youtube, and are quite good for a hero not primarily known for combat. Dick likes to think he had a little something to do with that.

Dick asks Kory if she’s okay about ten times on the flight to New York, and again on the uber to her swanky apartment. She looks great in her crop top and high waisted pencil skirt, her hair all done up in waves and her make-up in shades of gold and purple. But it’ll take exactly one episode for her to spend the majority of the party with runny eyeliner and hair matted to her forehead, scented like the mouthwash she keeps in her bag. She swears that she’s fine tonight, that nothing can pull her away.

The guests all take turns hugging them when they get into the door, congratulating them on their wonderful surprise, asking a million questions, fawning over them as if it’s their birthday and not Gar’s. But the man of the hour barely seems to mind, in fact, he’s the one going most of the fawning.

“Hello there little Garfield or Garfelia” he says cheerfully to Kory’s rounded tummy.

“We’re not naming the kid that,” Kory reminds him sternly. 

“You need to sleep on it, I get it,” Gar says. She rolls her eyes before hugging him a second time in as many minutes.

“Happy birthday kiddo,” Kory says. And hands over the beautifully wrapped gift.

Everything goes well, better than well. Dick likes seeing her in her element, in her beautiful apartment, the perfect mix of classy and funky even when done up with green lights and monster movie posters for Gar’s special night. but then again, just about anything is Kory’s element these days. She’s always had that talent for finding a place and making it home.

When Conner arrives about thirty minutes in with a whole keg on his shoulder, is when things take a turn. He never isn’t happy to see Kory, especially now, with the news out.

“Kory, congratulations!” Con says brightly, wrapping her in the arm that isn’t still supporting the keg. She squeals cheerfully as he effortlessly picks her up off of the ground, swinging her lightly back and forth. But maybe not quite lightly enough. Dick notices before everyone else how her face goes from overjoyed to distressed in the blink of an eye.

“Con, I think you need to put her down buddy,” Dick says, but it’s too late, there’s already vomit running down his shoulder.

Everything is quiet now, even the Rina Sawayama pumping from the speakers seems to soften.

“Oh no, I am so sorry,” Con says, setting both her and the keg down. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says, looking more embarrassed than anything. “Hey, it’s not really a party until someone pukes right?”

They laugh at her joke, not her, and she seems to feel immediately better.

Once Rachel finds a new shirt for Conner among Kory’s things (courtesy of an ex-boyfriend? Dick wonders before shaking the random thought away) and Kory gets cleaned up, the party continues.

Well after two AM, when everyone is either drunk, sleeping on Kory’s furniture, or both, and Kory is resting off the night in her own bedroom for the first time in months, Dick stands on her balcony, swigging a beer and looking out at the city lights. Gar joins him outside in the next moments, and they trade friendly nods.

“Good to have you back Dick,” he says. “I mean, not that you were ever really gone.”

“I never meant for it to get like this,” Dick says. “You were my family Gar, Rachel too, just as much as anyone else. I let the time get away and I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You had a lot going on.”

“No excuse.”

“Yeah, but we’re family right? Family means we’re always here when you need us.”

They clink their beers, and watch the traffic drift by together. Dick won’t let it be the last time. Not this time.

**Week 21**

Kory won’t let Dick sell his apartment. Bludhaven makes her sad sometimes, all of the suffering people and violent senseless crime in the streets, but it’s the city he’s vowed to protect regardless, and she believes in his ability to make it better, even if it takes a lifetime. Besides, there’s plenty of space for a kid. The training room itself is as big as the average studio apartment, and can easily be converted into two rooms. One will be for their son or daughter, the other for whatever, while the empty level upstairs would make a much better place for his training equipment, far out of reach from a small, curious toddler. 

“I know this city is dangerous, but if anyone can keep this kid safe it’s us, right?” She says, that perfect optimism in her voice.

“Yeah,” he says, his stare lingering. “It’s us.”

**Week 22**

Trading out all of his hard, sleek furniture for softer, homier things is easier than he fears. Especially with a cadre of super-strong metahumans he can call on to help him. By the weekend, it’s like a new place, with a cushy blue sofa, a dinette set made of oak instead of steel and glass, new paintings on the walls, and subtle decorative touches that suggest that a family lives here. And yet, he still doesn’t know if that’s true. Kory may stay for good, or just until the hardest parts are over. Asking her which one feels like an oddly insurmountable challenge. Instead, he tells her the new third room can be hers if she wants it, for as often and as long as she wants it. Maybe it goes without saying, but she seems happy to hear it anyway.

**Week 23**

As the Tamaranean ambassador to Earth, Kory’s frequently on some video chat with one odd-looking creature or another. She can speak all of their languages flawlessly, even the ones made up of sounds most humanoids are incapable of making. One night during his workout she startles him with a series of high-frequency shrills that he mistakes for an old-timey rotary phone. When she’s done, she removes her headset and swivels around in his desk chair to face him.

“That was Grak,” she says of the birdlike man she just ended the conference call with. “Misogynistic piece of shit. Thank god that man’s retiring. Anyway, what are we thinking for dinner?’

Seeing her work, hearing her curse, her use of ‘we’, it makes him smile just like everything else she does. 

**Week 24**

Kory is one of those women who wears heels and bodycon mini dresses with her growing bump, because of course she is. It’s charming as hell because it's so very her, and every time she gets ready for her day, he finds himself watching her out of the corner of his eye while he brushes his teeth or shaves. He’s fascinated by her morning habits, by the way she uses a spoon behind her lashes to get her mascara just right, and uses the heat from the tip of her finger to soften her eyebrow pencil. Her face is already perfect without any of the various highlighters and eyelid gems, shadows and shimmers , but he likes how it’s simply fun for her, a ritualistic bit of self-care before going out into the world.

  
  


**Week 25**

Before too long, the apartment starts to show signs of her in various corners, her satin pillowcases on his bed, her scooby doo refrigerator magnet holding up the grocery list, the little bottle of nail polish on his desk from the time she gave herself a manicure while they monitored the police scanner together. He sees it as more proof that she’s comfortable with the idea of staying. It causes him to ponder again what “for now” truly means.

**Week 26**

Eve confirms that the baby is a girl. He and Kory agreed at the beginning that it shouldn’t be a surprise, because making a big deal about gender is super dated. Still, Kory immediately wants to name her after Dick’s mother, only with an apostrophe I as an ode to her Tamaranean roots. He loves it so much he tries not to get choked up and doesn’t quite succeed. Mar’i Grayson, a good, strong name. 

**Week 28**  
  
They decide, with much time to spare, to deliver at home. They’ll all go to Tamaran when Mar’i is a little older, but Kory wants her to be born on Earth, where she first found her true superhero destiny. And since Eve and the other alien-friendly doctors they know may not be available at the drop of a hat, he has to make sure he knows exactly what to do. He’d delivered a baby one other time, during a tense hostage situation in Gotham the year before, but it had been pure good fortune that it had gone relatively smoothly. This time he wants to be prepared for anything. Kory says Tamaranean birth isn’t much different from human birth, the physical and emotional pain can be intense enough to override her super strength, and it’s best for her to be upright during the process and focus hard on her breathing. Drugs are out of the question, there’s no historical precedent for a Tamaranean/human hybrid and no telling what a quadruple shot of painkillers might do to Mar’i. 

The thought of Kory in pain isn’t one he wants to sit with, but he has to if he’s going to bring his daughter into the world safely. It still feels unreal in the best way to say it, 

His daughter. 

Their daughter. 

**Week 29**

Kory has business with The Justice League on Tamaranean matters, it’ll only take two weeks, maybe less. And she promises it’s nothing dangerous, mostly boring political stuff she only has to tend to once in a blue moon since her brother took the throne. Dick has to stay behind to deal with a mass kidnapping situation in Gotham. It sucks and he hates that he’s going to worry about them the whole time. This was always going to happen though, and the sooner it does the sooner he’ll get used to it.

**Week 30**

He doesn’t get used to it.

**Week 31**

When Kory comes back, it’s like the fist tightened around his heart the whole time finally lets go. 

**Week 32**

“Dick, Dick, come here!” She yells from the training room, still under construction. He runs in to answer her call, finding her in a loose top and yoga pants. She’s just finishing up her relatively low-impact pregnancy workout.

“What’s up?” he says. 

Without words, she grabs his hand and pulls him forward with her insane Tamaranean strength, pressing his palm against her belly. “She’s moving, feel.”

It’s the strongest kick he’s ever felt from inside of a womb, even Lois Lane’s kid was more chill than this. Mar’i is a fighter, like Mom and Dad, there’s no doubt about it. He drops to his knees, almost like being KO'ed by the little thing, and presses his lips to Kory’s stomach like it’s nothing. It’s like every other moment of curious intimacy between them in the past few months, rubbing her back through the morning sickness, the soft forehead kisses when he holds her, carrying her to his room when she falls asleep on his shoulder before the movie is over, her insanely warm forehead resting in the crook of his neck. It’s all so automatic, no second-guessing, no stressing about what it all means until he isn’t touching her anymore.

Kory’s fingers are in his hair as he hugs her around the waist, he’s still kneeling on the floor like he’s too weak to stand, even though he’s never felt stronger. “Hi Mar’i, hi Starshine,” he says softly. “I love you so much you know that?”

And in spite of all of those moments leading up to this one, it takes him far longer to realize that he isn’t saying that last part to just one of them.

**Week 33**

When the construction is done. Dick and Kory paint the baby’s room with a sunrise over a cityscape, not Bludhaven, definitely not Gotham, and not the kingdom of Tamaran either, but something new, something just for her. They call it Starshine City.

**Week 34**

He wants to do something nice for Kory, he decides, but getting her the perfect gift seems like a tall order. A gift for Mar’i is a gift for Mar’i, not her. And jewelry, as much as she loves it, always reads romantic, and considering there have been no repeats of what happened that night in France, romantic may not be appropriate. He also wouldn’t dream of decorating Kory's room for her when it’s finished. He hardly has the imagination to replicate her glam, quirky personal style, not on anything but the shallowest of levels anyway. In the end he decides on two tickets to _In The Heights_ . She’s loved musicals since he took her to see _9_ on their first date. It’s still a little romantic, he fears, but he goes for it anyway.

For their night out she wears a sequined mini dress with powerful shoulders, her bump on proud display under the form-fitting silhouette, and a pair of strappy heels, and she makes him wear a suit even though he halfheartedly tries to protest. 

“You know I can tie one of these myself right?” He says with humor as she does up his tie for him.

“Not as good as I can,” she insists. And she’s got him there.

The musical makes her cry, hard tears of happiness and sadness at the same time that she can’t quite rein in. The couple in front shushes her, and he gives them the stink eye until they turn back around and mind their business. 

**Week 35**

“I think I want to buy the Charter School,” Kory says over dinner one night. 

“What?” Dick asks, setting his fork down.

“The Charter School, on Halyard St. I want to buy it.”

“That was extremely random.”

“Not random at all. I met this kid at the bodega today, Isaac Fuertes, super sweet. He carried my groceries to the car and everything. Anyway, he says it’s been shut down for over a week because the last guy skipped town with all of their donations for the year.”

“Henry Lawson, I know, I’ve been tracking him”

“And you’ll definitely find him, but in the meantime I’m buying it. He did a shit job running that place anyway, the teachers are buying their own school supplies, the desks are falling apart, the library’s a joke and don’t even get me started on the computer lab, they deserve better”

She must notice at that point how he just stares at her.

“What? Bruce didn’t already promise did he? The guy spreads himself so thin I figured I’d handle this one. I know I can’t do everything but it doesn’t mean I should do nothing, right?”

“I mean, yeah, that’s a great way to put it”

“So you think it’s a good idea?”

“Of course, I think it’s an amazing idea. I think you’re…

“What? Come on, don’t trail off Grayson, this was really getting good," she says, smacking his shoulder playfully.

And It’s like he’s blacked out for a second, because in the next, his fingers are in her hair and his lips are on her lips. He’s overwhelmed, she’s beautiful, her mouth is so warm, she fits so nicely in his arms even with Mar’i between them, she makes everything better every single day and he can’t take it anymore. It wasn’t France that made him throw caution to the wind and put a baby inside of her, it was her, only her, his royal highness, kissing him back like someone so much more than just a commoner. 

She’s clutching his shirt collar and letting him run his hands up and down her back, kiss her neck, and hear her low whine in his ear. He’s ready to take her to bed, he’s been ready this whole time. 

But she pulls away before it can get too deep, too serious, and he remembers, he hasn’t kissed her since the night they made Mar’i, it’s not something they do. They practically live together, they’re having a baby together, but they don’t do this. There always seemed to be some unwritten rule about this part and now it’s back as soon as it went and he hates it.

“I can’t,” she says. “I mean, I want to, so much. It’s just, I can’t.”

“What’s the matter?” he says, noticing how her face starts to crumple.

She gets up, putting distance between them, and she’s facing away when she answers his question. “I lied,” she says. “I wasn’t okay on Tamaran, I wasn’t okay without you, not for a long time. But I had to be positive, you know? That’s what us Tamaraneans do. It makes us so easy for humans to love and even easier for them to leave.”

“Kory-- 

“Just let me say this,” her voice is breaking again, so much that he can feel it in his own throat, the thickness and the aching. She finally turns around and he stands up and steps toward her, only stopping when she puts her hands up, a plea for him to keep away. “Please or I’m just going to rip your clothes off and fall in love with you again and I can’t let that happen, not with Mar’i on the way. And I know that doesn’t make any sense, I know us being together seems like the right thing for her. But it felt like the right thing back then too, and then it wasn’t anymore… I just can’t bring a child into that kind of heartbreak. I won’t. She’s half-human Dick, she won’t always know what to do with feelings that strong.”

“Kory, I…

Why does his voice stop there? _Just tell her, you fool_ , he thinks to himself. _Tell her it’s going to be different this time, make her feel it._ He opens his mouth to speak, but the words still don’t come. Why don’t they come?

“Look, maybe, maybe me staying here isn’t such a good idea anymore--

“No, no please,” he says, almost panicked. “Look, we can do whatever you want okay? Just please don’t leave. Stay.”

“Dick…

“Whatever you want, Kory” he repeats, firmly. 

She wraps her arms around herself, looking down at her bump. The silence has never been louder. But she nods her head, yes, and he lets out a breath.

**Week 36**

Things are awkward for days, and he hates when things are awkward with Kory. Every time he thinks about touching her he second guesses and pulls back, and notices how she looks a little sad. It can’t work like this, but if he tells her that, she’ll leave, and that won’t work either. Now that she’s here he can’t lose her again, and yet it feels like he already is. If only he could go back to before he kissed her, before he ruined it.

But does that mean he’ll never get to kiss her again?

Why does that not seem to work either?

  
  


**Week 37**

This is the week Barbara is available to visit, at least briefly, and with Kory out signing papers for the charter school, there’s no stress over telling Babs exactly what’s up, without having to worry about Kory overhearing. The freckled redhead pushes herself into his apartment early that afternoon, and takes a moment to take in the new furniture, the baby-proofed power sockets, the slightly kid-friendlier colors. “Wow, this is really real isn’t it?” She says.

“It really is.”

As she settles in the center of the room, he grabs a seat from the dining room table and drags it up to her chair so he can take a seat across from her.

“How is she?” Barbara asks.

“She’s good, seriously,” he doesn’t get into the fact that he kissed her and it almost made her leave.

“That’s great. And how are you?”

Now that’s where things get tricky, he pushes his hair off of his forehead and lets out a frustrated breath. “I can still tell you anything right? I mean, that hasn’t changed has it?”

“Nothing has changed but the fact that we’re not sleeping together anymore,” she says. “And let’s be honest, we may make a mediocre couple but we’re dynamite friends.”

“Like Rachel and Joey?” he says.

“Exactly, anyone who says they should have ended up together is on crack, but to be fair, I don’t think she belonged with Ross either, she should have taken that baby to France and never looked back.”

He laughs. This is good, this is healthy in a way not everything was when they were together, “Well, if we’re really doing this, to be honest, I might be freaking out a little.”

“Don’t, you’re going to make a great dad.”

“That’s not what I’m freaking out about.”

She screws up her face curiously, “Then what?”

“I’m freaking out because… I think I'm in love with her. No, no more bullshit, I know I am.”

She doesn’t look regretful about it, she has her boyfriend after all, and judging by the pictures of them in the news, and the way her shoulders seem a little looser, they're perfectly happy. “So, you’re in love with the mother of your child and that’s a problem because?”

“Because, I haven’t done a single thing to deserve her, all I’ve done is leave and disappoint her and make her feel like my second choice. If I tell her I love her will she even believe me or…  
  
“Will she think you’re just saying that because of the kid? I see. That is a conundrum isn’t it?”

He waits for her to add something, but she’s obviously done talking.

“So no advice, no nothing?”

“I said you could tell me anything not that I’d have an answer.”

He shakes his head at her in half-frustration and half-amusement, and offers her a coffee, which she happily accepts.

**Week 38**

Kory’s room is finally done, and the decorating is so uniquely her that he’s sure there are no more thoughts about leaving, not for good anyway. Still, it feels different than he’d hoped, because lately he’s been having more and more thoughts about her room continuing to be his room, and him sleeping in there too. She can definitely come up with a design scheme that suits both of them, he thinks. Purple and blue together makes periwinkle, after all.

**Week 39**

On a Sunday, Kory’s on bedrest against her will, per Eve’s advice. The typical gestation period for Tamaraneans is twelve months, but Mar’i is already developed enough to be delivered safely should the time come much earlier, and considering that this is the first time since getting over her morning sickness that pregnancy hasn’t totally agreed with Kory, she may be right about that. Right now her swollen feet are propped up on a stack of three pillows and the doctor-approved glass and a half of red wine and asmr stream he found for her has her properly knocked out.

He’s trying to be extra quiet around the apartment, choosing the newest Gillian Flynn thriller over whatever’s good on Netflix. As soon as he gets to the part where the main heroine discovers a disturbing secret in the lake house shed, the shrill of the phone cuts extra loud through the tension, and he reluctantly sets the 600 pager down to go answer it. It’s Babs again, and he knits his brow as he answers.

“Okay, I have some advice,” she says before he can get the 'hello' out.

“Umm, okay, you realize it’s been--”

“Shush, my next meeting’s in five minutes!”

“Got it, continue.”

“Do you want to know why I broke up with you?” She says bluntly.

“You were crazy busy, I know.”

“We’re heroes, we’re always crazy busy. That’s not it. It was for the same reason I broke up with you the first two times.

He doesn’t want to be reminded of their two painful splits. The first had been brought on by extreme stress over a case they’d been working together, the lots of people dying sort of case, the second was fueled by something her father had said to him the last time he was off the wagon. 

_Maybe if you’d been here instead of running around with your posse of rejects she’d still be walking!_

The Commissioner apologized the next day, promised to quit drinking and kept that promise, but not before Dick and Barbara had a huge blowout. It wasn’t because she ever blamed Dick for her injury, she didn’t and wouldn’t, but she knew how badly her dad had blamed himself. It made their father/daughter relationship complicated to say the least, and when Dick gently tried to talk to her about it, it escalated to the point where they both said things they didn’t mean.

But truly, neither of the breakups had really been about one specific thing. There was always something else under the surface of Barbara that he couldn’t quite grasp, something she snatched away every time he tried. Maybe now that they’re past all that, she’s finally ready to tell him what it was.

“Why?” he asks.

“You always said the right things, and did the right things, and you were crazy adorable about all of it. But even still, I always had this fear in my heart that you didn’t _feel_ the right things. And it just never went away, it never even came close.”

“And do you know what scared you now?” he asks, something he never would have asked before. Before, he would have told her he felt everything for her. He would have said exactly the right thing, just like she said. But things are different now, not because of Mar’i, but because he and Barbara both want someone else and there’s no getting around it this time.

“I think you always cared about me so much more than you cared about yourself, it made you ignore everything you really wanted, what really made you feel... free. And every time I made up some excuse to leave, you came back, and I convinced myself it was because I was that thing. But it wasn’t true.”

“Babs…”

“Don’t try to say that it was. I know you loved me, and I know you wanted to fight for me and with me, but that’s the thing Dick, not every part of your life needs to be a fight, that’s never been fair to you. You came back to Gotham to wallow in the darkness with the rest of us and didn’t talk to her for three years, you avoided everyone who reminded you of her, and I figured it out. It wasn’t because you didn’t want to be with her anymore, it was because you did. She was always the reason my fear never went away. You didn’t see it because you were so invested in being the one I could always count on. But I know you, and I saw the truth. So if you want my advice, here it is, tell Kory you’re in love with her, her not believing you won’t make it not true, because nothing ever could.”

He looks at Kory’s bedroom door and repeats the words to himself after hanging up with Babs.

“Nothing ever could.”

**Week 40**

Eve was right, Kory’s water breaks two weeks early, not for a Tamaranean, but for a human. When Dick finds her, she’s on the floor next to her bed, grasping her stomach and panicking as the labor takes hold.

“This isn’t right, this is too soon,” she cries. He kneels down next to her, forgetting everything he told himself about keeping his space, and he strokes her hair off of her burning hot forehead.

“Eve said this might happen, it’s going to be okay, I promise.”

“It hurts so bad already,” she says between sharp breaths, her eyes squeezed shut in pain. “Something feels wrong. What if this can’t happen. What if we’re too different?”

“Hey,” he says firmly, making her open her eyes and look at him. “We are exactly the same as each other, do you hear me?”

She breathes deep, trying to focus, trying to calm down, and she nods once. “I hear you.”

He’s able to contact Eve after getting Kory back to the bed, but she has business in Metropolis and may not get to them in time. This is what they prepared for. He isn’t scared, he can’t be. Failing Kory or their daughter is out of the question.

After a few hours, and a few inches dilated, he gives her a piece of rebar to bend into a pretzel when clenching her own fists in the sheets stops being enough, squeezing a stress ball is useless to her, and him ending up with a fractured hand isn’t conducive to delivering a baby should Eve not arrive on time. If things were different, he’d let her break all of his fingers without hesitation. Instead, he rubs her shoulders, talks to her, makes her laugh in spite of the pain and the tears. 

At hour seven, Eve still isn’t here, but Mar’i is definitely ready to be. Dick helps Kory position herself into a squat and keeps her steady. Her screams are intense and piercing as she pushes. His heart pounds harder with each wail.

“You’re doing great you’re doing so amazing,” he tells her. She nods and grimaces and pushes again, harder.

“Oh my God I hate this, I hate this so much!” she cries, miserable, shrieking. If the place weren’t soundproof the cops would probably be on their way about now. Rachel and Gar are coming, Conner is coming, Eve is Coming, but right now it's just him, and just her, and they have to do this. He has to make her okay.

He doesn’t know where it comes from, or if he only thinks of saying it to distract her from hurting, but once the words leave his mouth he knows that he means them, that he’s never meant anything more.

“Kory, Marry me.”

“What? Fuck off,” she says, frustrated, in pain, and almost certainly not here for his waxing poetic right now. But he doesn’t care anymore.

“I mean it baby, I love you, I love you so much.”

She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths before speaking again, ragged and stuck “You don’t have to do that.” 

“I’m not asking you because I have to, I’m asking because I don’t want anybody else, not ever, And you’re not easy to leave, do you understand me? I’m so sorry that I ever made you feel that way.”

Her eyes, wide open again, are filled with tears, and there’s a broken capillary in the right one, and she’s in so much pain her now discarded rebar is in a tight ball, in spite of all of that, she breaks out into a wide grin.

“You love me?”

“I never stopped and I never will. Marry me, Princess.”

He thinks she’s about to answer him when she recoils once again, letting out a loud, shattering howl.

“I can see her, I can see her Kory,” he says, looking down, he wipes his tears away quickly, clearing his vision, and braces himself for his daughter to come “One more big push, you can do it.”

And he’s right, he’s right about all of it.

Mar’i Grayson is born at seven PM on a Wednesday. 9 lbs, three ounces, 23 inches long, perfect. Theirs.

**Epilogue**

He paces the floor of Kory’s room, cradling his little girl in his arms while her mother sleeps off the trauma of the evening. Rachel, Gar and Conner are all asleep in the other rooms, and the Bats are arriving tomorrow to meet the newest member of the family, but for now, Dick doesn’t care about anything outside of this room. Her eyes are green, like Kory’s, and her soft, downy hair is dark like his. He loves her more than he knows what to do with, and sings her a little song to remind her.

_Then one look at you_

_and the world’s alright with me_

_just one look at you_

_and I know it’s gonna be_

_A lovely day._

“Hey,” Kory says sleepily, stretching her arms up. “What time is it?”

“About 3 AM,” he says. “Sorry I woke you.”

“You didn’t,” she reassures. “Come here.”

So he does, sitting next to her, Mar’i in his arms. When he leans down to kiss Kory on the mouth she doesn’t pull away this time.

After they break the kiss, she looks at Mar’i “Hi sweetheart,” she says, softly touching the baby’s hair with the backs of her fingers “She’s so beautiful isn’t she?”

“Yeah, of course she is,” Dick says. There are a few moments of silence that follow, no dread or discomfort in them anymore. He knows what this is now. This is everything he never knew he needed.

“I didn’t give you an answer, did I?” She says after a while.

“No, you didn’t, but you can take all of the time--

“My answer is yes.”

“Oh thank God,” he says, and kisses her again.

It all started with a moment of abandon underneath the stars. But in truth, it started long before that. The first time he ever saw Kory she became his family, and now, everything is as it should be.

**The End.**


End file.
